Gospel | Chapter 7: Dec 14, 1882 (Part 2) | Swami Sarvapriyananda

0:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Om, Tababata, Om, Ritam, Taptaji, Banam, Kaviviri, Tham, Kalmasa, Baham, Shravanam, Mungalam, Shri Madata, Tham, Vigrinanti, Burida, Chana, [SPEAKER_00]: So, we had this class, this is called the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna's class. [SPEAKER_00]: This book is actually a translation of the Sri Sri Ramakrishna Kathambrita, which is a compilation of the dialogues of Sri Ramakrishna with the devotees.

0:34 [SPEAKER_00]: So, compiled by him, he just calls himself him. [SPEAKER_00]: His name is Mindronad Kupta. [SPEAKER_00]: He was the school teacher. [SPEAKER_00]: He used to come and listen to Sri Ramakrishna and maintain the diary. [SPEAKER_00]: And from that, this book was compiled. [SPEAKER_00]: This book Translation was actually made right here in New York.

0:50 [SPEAKER_00]: We have another center across the park on the east side. [SPEAKER_00]: So I mean, Nikhilan and the G was here during the war years, the Second World War years, around that time the book was published. [SPEAKER_00]: It was translated and published from here. [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, this particular edition is still published by the Ramakrishna Vivekan the Center in New York on the east side.

1:12 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a remarkable book, really. [SPEAKER_00]: we are reading this online and now we are switching to this in-person mode and this we go back to the whole way of just reading a little bit and talking about it questions, discussions, observations, that way. [SPEAKER_00]: So my bookmark tells me this book we are on page 164, the section is Thursday, December 14th, 1882, Thursday, December 14th, 1882.

1:51 [SPEAKER_00]: Master and Vijay goes swami. [SPEAKER_00]: So we had read a couple of pages, [SPEAKER_00]: Thursday, December 14, 1882, it was afternoon, Sriram Krishna was sitting on his bed after a short, noon day rest, Vijay Balaram M. Be author. [SPEAKER_00]: And a few other devotees were sitting on the floor with their faces toward the master.

2:23 [SPEAKER_00]: They could see the sacred river ganges the Ganga through the door, since it was winter, all were wrapped up in warm clothes. [SPEAKER_00]: Vijay had been suffering from colic and had brought some medicine with him. [SPEAKER_00]: So this is the room where Sir Ramakrishna said, and those who are being to the next issue, they can easily recollect that room.

2:45 [SPEAKER_00]: It's the geography, the topography of the place is still the same. [SPEAKER_00]: If you sit in that particular position, you can still see the river flowing, if I see through the door and outside, you can see the river. [SPEAKER_00]: Vijay was a paid preacher in the Sadhar and Brahma Samaj.

3:02 [SPEAKER_00]: Sadhar and Brahma Samaj was a 19th century Hindu reform movement. [SPEAKER_00]: So they considered themselves not to be Hindus, so they would say, they are Brahms. [SPEAKER_00]: And they split into different organizations. [SPEAKER_00]: Sadhar and Brahma Samaj was one of those. [SPEAKER_00]: Vijay was very devoted to Sri Ramakrishna.

3:22 [SPEAKER_00]: He was a paid preacher in the Sardar and Brahma Samaj, but they were many things about which he could not agree with the Samaj authorities. [SPEAKER_00]: He came from a very noble family of Bengal, noted for its piety and other spiritual qualities. [SPEAKER_00]: A Dwayta Goswami, one of his remote ancestors, had been an intimate companion of Sri Caitanya.

3:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Thus the blood of a great lover of God flowed in Vijay's veins. [SPEAKER_00]: As an adherent of the Brahmasamaj, Vijay and no doubt meditated on the formless Brahman, but is innate love of God, inherited from his distinguished ancestors. [SPEAKER_00]: had merely been waiting for the proper time to manifest itself in all its sweetness, thus Vijay was irresistibly attracted by the god intoxicated state of Sri Ramakrishna, and often sought his company.

4:16 [SPEAKER_00]: He would listen to the master's words with great respect, and they would dance together in an ecstasy of divine love. [SPEAKER_00]: So the reference is to Sri Caitanya, who about 500 years ago in the eastern part of India. [SPEAKER_00]: She pioneered this movement of the love of God, God as Krishna.

4:40 [SPEAKER_00]: This is called the Bengal School of Vaisnavism, Gaudiya Vaisnavism. [SPEAKER_00]: Sri Caitanya is regarded as an avatar, an incarnation of God. [SPEAKER_00]: So it is entirely bugged the movement of love of God, devotion to God, and Vijay is a descendant of one of the close disciples of Sri Caitanya, Adwaita Goswami.

5:05 [SPEAKER_00]: In their lineage, it's a very noble family because these are like, it's like, you know, somebody, if you see the lived with Sri Ramakrishna and then you relate it to that person or an apostle of the Christ and you relate it to that person, it's that kind of a lineage for them, it's very noble.

5:24 [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, [SPEAKER_00]: Just incidentally, one of our precedents Swami Atmasthan and the G, was the precedent, 15th precedent of our order, passed away a few years ago. [SPEAKER_00]: He was a disciple of Swami Viggananda, a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, and he was descended from the same bloodline from Advaita Goswami.

5:48 [SPEAKER_00]: And see, I don't know how water it is, but how it works, [SPEAKER_00]: same family and the Swami Apostanji was the elder son of the family they had in those days you know so many children so six boys four of whom became monks so there is something to that family which is devout for many centuries across multiple generations something works there [SPEAKER_00]: four of the six brothers became monks, three of them in a very narrow order.

6:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Swami atmastananda, the President, the two other monks, of whom I met one, Yuktadnanji, I didn't meet him, Gopeshanji, I met him, I was very senior monk. [SPEAKER_00]: And then the fourth brother, Kali Krishnaanda, they are descendants of the same [SPEAKER_00]: Also, I should mention, we are here in New York.

6:48 [SPEAKER_00]: They are here in New York. [SPEAKER_00]: You all know them as the Hare Krishna's. [SPEAKER_00]: So they are the Hare Krishna's here and an offshoot of the School of Bengal Baishnamism. [SPEAKER_00]: Prabhupāda, who came and established the International Society of Krishna Karshasness right here in New York, he belonged to this order of monks.

7:12 [SPEAKER_00]: Which also explains, Vijay is singing and dancing with the master, that's one of the practices that they do. [SPEAKER_00]: Taking the name of God and Hari Rama, Hare Krishna and dancing here. [SPEAKER_00]: They started off in Central Park here in the 1960s. [SPEAKER_00]: It was a weekday.

7:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Generally devotees came to the master in large numbers on Sundays. [SPEAKER_00]: Hence those who wanted to have intimate talks with him, visited him on weekdays. [SPEAKER_00]: A boy named Vishnu, living in Ariyadaho, had recently committed suicide by cutting his throat with a razor. [SPEAKER_00]: The talk turned to him, so that boy was a devotee, actually.

7:53 [SPEAKER_00]: Master, I felt very badly when I heard of the boy's passing away. [SPEAKER_00]: He was a pupil in a school and used to come here. [SPEAKER_00]: He would often say to me that he couldn't enjoy worldly life. [SPEAKER_00]: He had lived with some relatives in the western provinces. [SPEAKER_00]: And at that time, he used to meditate in solitude, in the middles, hills and forests.

8:17 [SPEAKER_00]: He told me he had visions of many divine forms. [SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps this was his last birth. [SPEAKER_00]: He must have finished most of his duties in his previous birth. [SPEAKER_00]: The little that had been left undone [SPEAKER_00]: One must admit the existence of tendencies inherited from previous births in tells and parable.

8:43 [SPEAKER_00]: There is a story about a man who practiced the shower shadhana, footnotes. [SPEAKER_00]: A religious practice prescribed by the Tantra, in which the aspirant uses a shower corpse as a seat for meditation. [SPEAKER_00]: There is a seat here meditation. [SPEAKER_00]: So instead of your yoga mat, you use a dead body.

9:05 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not recommended, don't try it out, don't try it out at home. [SPEAKER_00]: And you want, and the story gets more gruesome, so I know what you will be inspired to try it out. [SPEAKER_00]: A tantric practice. [SPEAKER_00]: And a very advanced tantric practice. [SPEAKER_00]: He worshiped the Divine Mother in a deep forest.

9:28 [SPEAKER_00]: First, he saw many terrible visions, finally a tiger attacked and killed him. [SPEAKER_00]: So nobody's going to be very encouraged by that. [SPEAKER_00]: Another man, happening to pass and seeing the approach of the tiger, had climbed the tree. [SPEAKER_00]: Afterwards, he got down and found all the arrangements for worship at hand.

9:46 [SPEAKER_00]: He performed some purifying ceremonies and seated himself on the crops, so he also happened to get on 3xpert, somehow. [SPEAKER_00]: No sooner had he done a little japa repetition of the month of the Divine Mother. [SPEAKER_00]: Then the Divine Mother appeared before him and said, [SPEAKER_00]: He bowed low at the lotus feet of the goddess and said, May I ask you one question, Mother?

10:09 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm speechless with the measurement at your action. [SPEAKER_00]: The other man worked so hard to get all the ingredients for your worship and tried to propitiate you for such a long time, but you didn't condescend to, Kranisant to show him your favor, and I, who don't know anything of worship, but he knew enough to do what has to be done there with him.

10:31 [SPEAKER_00]: who have done nothing, who have neither devotion nor knowledge nor love and who haven't practiced any austerities, I'm receiving so much of your grace. [SPEAKER_00]: The Divine Mother said with the laugh, my child, you don't remember your previous previous births, for many births you tried to propitiate me through austerities as a result of those austerities, all these things have come to hand, and you have been blessed with my vision.

11:03 [SPEAKER_00]: just to point out that when must accept, we, this is not our first time around here. [SPEAKER_00]: We have passed through these lands, other times. [SPEAKER_00]: We have had other lives and we are all on a journey. [SPEAKER_00]: So we are all, we are much further along than we think. [SPEAKER_00]: immediately.

11:27 [SPEAKER_00]: So what was in my past life? [SPEAKER_00]: That's our curiosity. [SPEAKER_00]: One need not be curious. [SPEAKER_00]: It's no point to going back to things which are long gone and dusty and dead. [SPEAKER_01]: Ashes to ashes does to dust. [SPEAKER_00]: There's no point in me curious, want to know what I was in my past life, I just have to look at my present life, this was produced by what I was in my past life, so something some, everybody wants to be clean, clear-pattery or Julius Caesar or something in her, we were the same mixed bunch and we have produced this particular mixed character right now.

12:12 [SPEAKER_00]: Master. [SPEAKER_00]: Suicide is a heinous sin undoubtedly, a man who kills himself must return again and again to this world and suffer its agony. [SPEAKER_00]: So every religion is in strong terms, it decries suicide, because human life is valuable. [SPEAKER_00]: And especially for the experience that we may gain in this world, and most especially if you are spiritually inclined, this is the most valuable life.

12:44 [SPEAKER_00]: And all the Indian traditions, which all of them believe in this multiple lives, [SPEAKER_00]: One point to make is now we have a human birth and this human birth, the door to enlightenment, door to God realization is open finally. [SPEAKER_00]: So, make an effort. [SPEAKER_00]: Let's try at least, use the human birth for the best use that we can make of it, which is spirituality.

13:11 [SPEAKER_00]: a man who kills himself must return again and again to this world and suffer its agony. [SPEAKER_01]: But, but. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't call it suicide if a person leaves his body after having the vision of God. [SPEAKER_00]: There is no harm in giving up once body that way. [SPEAKER_00]: After attaining knowledge, some people give up their bodies.

13:33 [SPEAKER_00]: After the gold image has been cast in the clay mold, you may either preserve the mold or break it. [SPEAKER_00]: Many years ago, a young man of about 20 used to come to the temple garden from Baranagar. [SPEAKER_00]: His name was Gopal Shain. [SPEAKER_00]: In my presence, he used to experience such intense ecstasy, that Ridae had to support him for fear he might fall to the ground and break his limbs.

14:01 [SPEAKER_00]: That young man touched my feet one day and said, Sir, I shall not be able to see you anymore. [SPEAKER_00]: Let me bid you goodbye. [SPEAKER_00]: A few days later, I learned that he had given up his body. [SPEAKER_01]: little more. [SPEAKER_00]: It is said that there are four classes of human beings, the bound, those aspiring after liberation, the liberated and the ever-perfect.

14:28 [SPEAKER_00]: The world is like a fishing net, men of the fish, and God whose baya has created this world is the fishermen. [SPEAKER_00]: When the fish are entangled in the net, some of them try to tear through its meshes in order to get their liberation. [SPEAKER_00]: They are [SPEAKER_00]: but by no means all of them escape, only a few jump out of the net with a loud splash and then people say, ah, there goes a big one.

14:53 [SPEAKER_00]: In like manner, three or four men attain liberation. [SPEAKER_00]: Again, some fish are so careful by nature that they are never caught in the net, some beings of the ever perfect class like Narada, are never entangled in the meshes of worldliness. [SPEAKER_00]: most of the fish are trapped, but they are not conscious of the net and of their imminent death.

15:13 [SPEAKER_00]: No sooner are they entangled than they run headlong, net and all, trying to hide themselves in the mud. [SPEAKER_00]: They don't make the least effort to get free. [SPEAKER_00]: On the contrary, they go deeper and deeper into the mud. [SPEAKER_00]: These fish are like the bound men. [SPEAKER_00]: They are still inside the net, but they think that they are quite [SPEAKER_00]: A bound creature is immersed in worldliness, in lust and gold, having gone deep into the mire of degradation.

15:45 [SPEAKER_00]: But still, he believes, is quite happy and secure. [SPEAKER_00]: Deliberated and the seekers after liberation look on the world as a deep well. [SPEAKER_00]: They do not enjoy it. [SPEAKER_00]: To another point, therefore, after the attainment of knowledge, [SPEAKER_00]: Such a thing is rare indeed.

16:09 [SPEAKER_00]: Just in case anybody is feeling inspired. [SPEAKER_00]: I am enlightened so I can give up my body now. [SPEAKER_00]: She says that's not a normal thing, that's very rare. [SPEAKER_00]: So I just stop here just a little bit and discuss a little... And then go on. [SPEAKER_00]: A case in point would be Sri Ramakrishna's own Advaita Guru, Tota Puri, who taught him Nandual, that you are the Nandual reality, Ahambram has me.

16:37 [SPEAKER_00]: He was a wandering monk, a Paramahamsa who gave Sri Ramakrishna the vows of monasticism and initiated him into the philosophy and practice of Advaita Vedanta. [SPEAKER_00]: Those are Puri, being a radical non-dualist, he admitted the truth of non-dualism that there is one limitless reality and you are that.

17:08 [SPEAKER_00]: This entire universe is an appearance of one underlying reality. [SPEAKER_00]: And that one underlying reality is what we are. [SPEAKER_00]: You are that. [SPEAKER_00]: That's where I must say, you are that. [SPEAKER_00]: But he did not admit the importance of the reality of the personal God.

17:25 [SPEAKER_00]: God, that's Sadama Krishna is to worship. [SPEAKER_00]: So, Sadama Krishna worship, God as the Divine Mother, Kali, Divine Mother. [SPEAKER_00]: So one day, the Sri Ramakrishna's habit was, you know, as the evening falls, he would take the name of God. [SPEAKER_00]: In a very simple way, he would clap and take in a Ram, huri, huri, huri, go in, the go in, they would do that.

17:45 [SPEAKER_00]: And his way of deciding when it's evening is if he couldn't count the individual hairs on his arm, it got dark enough, so that's evening. [SPEAKER_00]: Now I have to take the name of God. [SPEAKER_00]: So they're discussing high non-dual philosophy, sitting around the fire which that monk would light and they were talking, and Sri Ramakrishna suddenly started doing that.

18:03 [SPEAKER_00]: So that put it was exasperated, you know, all the way to U.R. [SPEAKER_00]: Brahman and suddenly what's this? [SPEAKER_00]: So he sarcastically said, the roti took tehokya. [SPEAKER_00]: That means are you making chapatis? [SPEAKER_00]: So that's the kind of flattened bread which people in especially in the north of India, but also in the south, all over India it's common.

18:25 [SPEAKER_00]: So they roll it and then... [SPEAKER_00]: In some villages, I mean many parts of North India, especially in the villages, the way they do it is this way. [SPEAKER_00]: So sounds like clapping. [SPEAKER_00]: So that's what he was [SPEAKER_00]: I remember once I was in the high Himalayas with a group of monks around similar, they were all non-dualists in the evening, darkness had fallen, but this was in the Himalayas, this was not in the plains.

18:55 [SPEAKER_00]: More than 10,000 feet high in Gangothri. [SPEAKER_00]: and they actually had a little fire going and we're sitting around and talking Vedanta. [SPEAKER_00]: The time for dinner and this devout person from a little ashram nearby, they call it, it's not rotate, it's not the flattened bread, it's an iteration of that, another form of that, it's called tikka.

19:20 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a very rough form of that bread. [SPEAKER_00]: It's thick and virtually [SPEAKER_00]: unless you are a tough old monk in the high mountains, so they bought it, and the first monk to try it out that young man bought it in a basket is hot from the fire, you burn it on the fire, so the first monk to try it out, he said, what is this?

19:45 [SPEAKER_00]: It's soft, he said, it's the Mulayam, he just said Ji Lokate and like the rich people eat, it's soft and now make it so hard that your teeth would break if you try to bite into it. [SPEAKER_00]: And I whispered to a monk when he next to me that I don't think I can eat this. [SPEAKER_00]: And then that monk said, you know, tickle, crying, you're paid Karabni, you're got to kiss over.

20:10 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, you have to accept it. [SPEAKER_00]: The price of eating this is that you're going to get a tummy upset anyway. [SPEAKER_00]: Another monk who was a European white person in one of our ashes when he first saw the roti that was served to him. [SPEAKER_00]: He named it UFOs. [SPEAKER_00]: What's UFO?

20:36 [SPEAKER_00]: An identified flat object. [SPEAKER_00]: Not lying on the other two flat objects. [SPEAKER_00]: Another funny story about a roti would be in the ashram we're sitting for dinner once, all the monks and there was this person who had, you know, they would serve you. [SPEAKER_00]: So that ashram had chairs and tables and benches and tables actually, so we would all sit together and the cooks would serve and they would have little trolleys on which they would be big cauldrons with the rotis were kept.

21:06 [SPEAKER_00]: And when the past year you'd have to say two or three or whatever you wanted they will toss it onto your plate. [SPEAKER_00]: And I was telling the story of Sri Ramakrishna meeting Sri Lanka Swami in Banaras, very great well known Swami was Sri Lanka Swami who apparently lived not apparently, sort of it was documented more or less.

21:27 [SPEAKER_00]: He lived to 280. [SPEAKER_00]: So Sri Ramakrishna met him. [SPEAKER_00]: and Sri Ramakrishna asked him at that time, Trailanghiswami was observing the vow of silence. [SPEAKER_00]: The Sri Ramakrishna had gone to Banaras, met Trailanghiswami, asked him, is God one or two, is it two or one?

21:47 [SPEAKER_00]: This is the question, this is a B here, asked. [SPEAKER_00]: This is one or two. [SPEAKER_00]: And Trailanghiswami said one. [SPEAKER_00]: And this is a painting of that actually, where if you go to the place where Therenghiswami is to live, there's a painting of Sri Ramakrishna and Therenghiswami.

22:00 [SPEAKER_00]: It looks like a photograph, but it doesn't. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like a painting. [SPEAKER_00]: And Therenghiswami is asking too. [SPEAKER_00]: And Therenghiswami is saying one. [SPEAKER_00]: So I showed this to the monk next to me as we are novices. [SPEAKER_00]: We are all really excited about these stories.

22:11 [SPEAKER_00]: We're exchanging. [SPEAKER_00]: So I was telling him like this. [SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately, that's when the rotis were being distributed. [SPEAKER_00]: And he saw that. [SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to, he gave me one. [SPEAKER_00]: And by the time, [SPEAKER_00]: He's already gone. [SPEAKER_00]: There's a better chance I could ask him to change the order.

22:25 [SPEAKER_00]: No, scun. [SPEAKER_00]: So that's another roti story. [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, back to... [SPEAKER_00]: But don't nobody said that. [SPEAKER_00]: Are you making rotis? [SPEAKER_00]: Why are you clapping and saying, Ram, Ram, Harry, Harry, Krishna, Krishna and all of that? [SPEAKER_00]: Then Sri Ramakrishna said, what kind of talk is that?

22:44 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm taking the name of the Divine Mother and taking the name of God and you're saying I'm making chapatis. [SPEAKER_00]: So Sri Ramakrishna saw that Devs, this monk, who is enlightened, who realizes Brahman. [SPEAKER_00]: But it's still incomplete. [SPEAKER_00]: He's enlightened, and he is free, when enlightened being.

23:07 [SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, this is his last burden, he's free. [SPEAKER_00]: So he has kicked the boxes, but it's still not wholesome. [SPEAKER_00]: And one can go to the highest peak of Everest, but that doesn't mean you've seen all the beautiful valleys around. [SPEAKER_00]: So, one day Syram Krishna wanted to show him that the personal god is Divine Madharkali, that's real too.

23:32 [SPEAKER_00]: So one day, Todapuri, who was a wandering monk from Punjab, a very strong person, but anybody's health will break down in Bengal. [SPEAKER_00]: It's well known for making people sick. [SPEAKER_00]: There's malaria there, there are any number of bugs which will spoil your tummy. [SPEAKER_00]: So Todapuri, he got a stomach upset and a dysentery and a lot terrible pain in his stomach.

23:59 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, he had this ability to meditate and forget the world and the body. [SPEAKER_00]: But one night when you sit here, the pain was a lot and he thought I would go into Samadhi. [SPEAKER_00]: See, whenever we are all very healthy, everything is fine, even then we can't concentrate our minds.

24:13 [SPEAKER_00]: He had the capacity even in the midst of terrible pain, he could completely forget the body, it become absorbed in real nature's pure consciousness. [SPEAKER_00]: He sat in Samali in order to forget the pain in the body, he couldn't, he couldn't, to his astonishment. [SPEAKER_00]: This is something that he had not seen in the, like the, he had been practicing all these for 40 years.

24:33 [SPEAKER_00]: He had never seen this in his life. [SPEAKER_00]: He was astonished. [SPEAKER_00]: And then he thought, this, what Sri Ram Krishna says, I've realized, I'm not the body. [SPEAKER_00]: that I am not this body, not even this mind. [SPEAKER_00]: I know I'm very clear about what I am. [SPEAKER_00]: And if this body is getting so much trouble, let it go.

24:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Who can say this? [SPEAKER_00]: Saddam Krishna gives a very significant example. [SPEAKER_00]: He says, after the gold image has been cast into clay mold, you may either preserve the mold or break it. [SPEAKER_00]: So images of the gods and goddesses that made. [SPEAKER_00]: So there's a mold which you use to make an image.

25:17 [SPEAKER_00]: And once the image is ready, the outer clay mold can be discarded. [SPEAKER_00]: If you want, or you can use it to make other images also. [SPEAKER_00]: What does that mean? [SPEAKER_00]: This body is like the clay mold. [SPEAKER_00]: We have this for enlightenment. [SPEAKER_00]: But once we realize who or what we truly are, that we are not the body, [SPEAKER_00]: It's absolutely clear, and one is absolutely unshaken then when you know old age disease death comes.

25:46 [SPEAKER_00]: Pain is unpleasant, even for an enlightened person pain is still unpleasant, becoming old and sick and dying is still unpleasant. [SPEAKER_00]: But the difference between them and us is that this is all we know. [SPEAKER_00]: So if this is going, this is, we are suffering here. [SPEAKER_00]: We don't have any other place of safety, peace, security.

26:06 [SPEAKER_00]: They have, so they can see from their real nature, it's perfectly all right. [SPEAKER_00]: It's the body which is suffering. [SPEAKER_00]: It's the body which is breaking down. [SPEAKER_00]: It's the body which is dying. [SPEAKER_00]: So in their case, the golden image is ready. [SPEAKER_00]: In our case, also the golden image is there, but we don't know it yet.

26:25 [SPEAKER_00]: and for that's why we need this body, this particular life in order to practice spiritual practices in order to become enlightened. [SPEAKER_00]: For them, they're enlightened already. [SPEAKER_00]: The body, if it's there, good for the body, they don't need it. [SPEAKER_00]: If the body is going, let it go.

26:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Or they can see clearly, there's a lot of suffering in the body. [SPEAKER_00]: It does, no good to me. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm perfectly all right. [SPEAKER_00]: So in that sense, Tota police stood up and he started walking. [SPEAKER_00]: So he did what Saddam Krishna was saying. [SPEAKER_00]: He wanted to give up the body.

27:00 [SPEAKER_00]: He started walking. [SPEAKER_00]: So there's a river here. [SPEAKER_00]: There's dead of the night. [SPEAKER_00]: No use living in this body anymore. [SPEAKER_00]: See, it's not. [SPEAKER_00]: So he said in the sense, he knows he will live anyway. [SPEAKER_00]: live in the sense of being this eternal immortal soul, the pure consciousness, the Atman.

27:16 [SPEAKER_00]: So he knows that this literally nothing to him, it's like brushing off a piece of lint from your class. [SPEAKER_00]: So he decided to drown the body in the river. [SPEAKER_00]: But now the story took a different turn. [SPEAKER_00]: See, walked into the river, the Ganga. [SPEAKER_00]: I was very broad there and he walked [SPEAKER_00]: And the water never rose before above his knees, and then he came out on the other side of the Ganga.

27:46 [SPEAKER_00]: He was thunder struck. [SPEAKER_00]: He made his way back to on this side, and he went to the temple of Kali and he bowed down for the first time. [SPEAKER_00]: That there is a reality in this manifested world. [SPEAKER_00]: It's impossible to dismiss it as entirely unreal a play of illusion or magic.

28:08 [SPEAKER_00]: including the body, life, death, from sorrow, enlightenment, everything, spirituality, everything, is under the domain of the Divine Mother, Shakti. [SPEAKER_00]: And Shakti is none other than Brahman, but in the manifested world, it's the mother. [SPEAKER_00]: In its absolute sense, pure being, pure awareness, which we are, all of us are.

28:32 [SPEAKER_00]: So that personal God is also real that's what he accepted. [SPEAKER_00]: But to the point of that Sri Ram Krishna is making it, once one becomes enlightened, there are some people who can actually, let go of the body, moving on. [SPEAKER_00]: The bound creatures and tangled in worldliness will not come to their senses at all.

29:05 [SPEAKER_00]: The camel loves to eat thorny bushes, the more it eats the thorns, the more the blood gushes from its mouth, still it must eat thorny plants and will never give them up. [SPEAKER_00]: The man of worldly nature suffers so much sorrow and affliction, but if it gets it all in a few days and begins his whole life over again.

29:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Suppose a man has lost his wife. [SPEAKER_00]: Remember all this man talk. [SPEAKER_00]: In those days the women devotees would come separately to Sri Ramakrishna and the men. [SPEAKER_00]: So, M when he would be there it would be the men devotees would be around him. [SPEAKER_00]: Suppose a man has lost his wife or she has turned unfaithful, low, he marries again.

29:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Or take the instance of a mother, her son dies and she suffers bitter grief. [SPEAKER_00]: But after a few days, she forgets all about it. [SPEAKER_00]: The mother so overwhelmed with sorrow a few days before, now attends to a toilet and put son puts on her jewelry. [SPEAKER_00]: A father becomes bankrupt through the marriage of his daughters, yet he goes on having children [SPEAKER_00]: When those days people used to have lots of children, people are ruined by litigation, yet they go to court all the same.

30:22 [SPEAKER_00]: That's still true. [SPEAKER_00]: Especially here in New York. [SPEAKER_00]: There are men who cannot feed the children they have, who cannot close them or provide decent shelter for them, yet they have more children every year. [SPEAKER_00]: Funny story again related to the Swami and in New York here itself.

30:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Swami Madhavananda, who was the president of the order, he came here to New York, he actually had a brain tumor, and the Swami here in New York, Nikhilan and Diji, who was his good friend. [SPEAKER_00]: He invited him here, he said, I'll take care of everything, just say yes, you come here.

31:00 [SPEAKER_00]: So he agreed, and he did come, and there was a successful operation here, also. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, when he was here in New York in the 60s, I think, late 60s, yes, that's the time the bird control pill had been invented and to the big issue, a big debate, whether people should take it or not, is it good to use it or not, and so the American devotees who were there in that center at that time, and one day they were discussing this a hard discussion going on.

31:27 [SPEAKER_00]: And it's sort of, of course, the Swami, it doesn't know about these things or he's not interested. [SPEAKER_00]: And Swami was sitting in a distance, but he overheard the discussion. [SPEAKER_00]: And he said, from that distance, he said, I'm in support of it. [SPEAKER_00]: He looked at him and said, Oh, Swami, you have a position on this, you know about this.

31:44 [SPEAKER_00]: Swami said, Yes, no but and no death. [SPEAKER_00]: Liberation from the cycle of birth then death, that's what you meant. [SPEAKER_00]: But yes, in those days, and they used to have a lot of children and they would be impoverished. [SPEAKER_00]: Again, the worldly man is like a snake trying to swallow a mole.

32:04 [SPEAKER_00]: The snake and neither swallow the mole nor give it up. [SPEAKER_00]: The bound soul may have realized that there is no substance to the world. [SPEAKER_00]: The world is like a hog plumb, only stone and skin. [SPEAKER_00]: But still, he cannot give it up and turn his mind to God. [SPEAKER_00]: I once met a relative of Keshavsyn, 50 years old.

32:22 [SPEAKER_00]: He was playing cards. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, you'd see a lot of such people today. [SPEAKER_00]: There is another characteristic of the bound soul. [SPEAKER_00]: If you remove him from his worldly surroundings to a spiritual environment, he will pine away. [SPEAKER_00]: The worm that grows in fields feels very happy there.

32:45 [SPEAKER_00]: It thrives in fields. [SPEAKER_00]: It will die if you put it in a pot of rice. [SPEAKER_00]: All remained silent. [SPEAKER_00]: One thing I must mention here, all of these people they accept that a multiple lives. [SPEAKER_00]: So when Sri Ramakrishna gets the example of only a few of the fish escape the net, only a few get liberation.

33:07 [SPEAKER_00]: that doesn't mean the rest are all condemned to failure and some sorrow. [SPEAKER_00]: It just means in this life they did not get it, but for anybody who's a Hindu hearing this, it's also assumed all of us are going to get liberated. [SPEAKER_00]: One day or the other, all of us are going to be free of some sorrow.

33:26 [SPEAKER_00]: One day or the other, one life or the other. [SPEAKER_00]: The only thing is, [SPEAKER_00]: It's life time is a very big thing. [SPEAKER_00]: One life can't who knows what will happen next. [SPEAKER_00]: Like who knows when the next chance comes, the Buddhists have a way of showing how rare it is to get a human birth and this opportunity for liberation.

33:50 [SPEAKER_00]: They say in the vast oceans of the world, [SPEAKER_00]: and the tortoise comes up once in a hundred years to the surface and on the in the ocean there is a golden ring which is floating like a golden collar. [SPEAKER_00]: What are the chances that once in a hundred years the tortoise comes up and the golden collar will be right there on top of the water where the tortoise will come up and its neck will go through the collar and get the golden collar.

34:24 [SPEAKER_00]: So rare, in the vast oceans, some were a golden color, some were a tortoise who comes up only once in a hundred years. [SPEAKER_00]: So as rare as that is getting a human birth, getting this body, the right hardware for liberation. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's just a way of trying to encourage us.

34:47 [SPEAKER_00]: usually as a human being, but then the right opportunity for spiritual practice on that, but it's just a way of saying that this life is valuable, use it. [SPEAKER_00]: So all the main silent. [SPEAKER_00]: So when he says that only a few escape, the rest are caught and they dragged in the net by the fishermen, it's just that this life is gone.

35:09 [SPEAKER_00]: But there'll be other lives. [SPEAKER_00]: People will get enlightened one day or the other. [SPEAKER_00]: Another example he gives from Banaras, again from Banaras. [SPEAKER_00]: So there is this temple of the Divine Mother called Anapuna, which means the mother who gives beautiful food.

35:25 [SPEAKER_00]: Now it is a saying in Banaras that everybody gets fed. [SPEAKER_00]: The Sri Ramakrishna says in Banaras, everybody gets fredged and who go to the Divine Mother, you will get fredged, you'll get food. [SPEAKER_00]: However, some get fredged early in the morning, some in the afternoon, some in in late evening, and as the sun sets, morning, afternoon, evening, evening, evening, evening, [SPEAKER_00]: the universe, the beginning of the universe, and I guess this is noon time, sort of half way through, and there are millions and billions of years and many more lifetimes, and the evening would be the end of a particular cycle as the darkness falls and the universe disappears [SPEAKER_00]: but all will get liberated and it's not that everybody gets liberated one cycle, one may have to wait for multiple cycles.

36:17 [SPEAKER_00]: So it's good to basically the idea is be up and doing, try to get liberated now. [SPEAKER_00]: Be spiritual. [SPEAKER_00]: Anybody else wants to say, sir, I mean, this topic slowly changes after this. [SPEAKER_00]: Yes. [SPEAKER_00]: You can, it depends on, if I have a lot of bad karma, so suffering in an animal life or there are any number of hellish existences, one might go to, but remember all of it is still temporary, we come back again and we get this chance again.

36:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, then the point is again, not to worry about it, to be up and doing right now, [SPEAKER_00]: Now, he asks a very important question, Vijay, all remained silent, Vijay. [SPEAKER_00]: So in the background with keeping all these teachings in the backgrounds, pretty morbid and pretty scary also.

37:17 [SPEAKER_00]: Then Vijay says, what must be the bound souls' condition of mind in order to achieve liberation? [SPEAKER_00]: All right, I get it. [SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to hammer that point again and again. [SPEAKER_00]: I am a bound soul, and here's a chance for God realization enlightenment freedom from some sorrow.

37:37 [SPEAKER_00]: So, what do I have to be like to be ready for this? [SPEAKER_00]: In Sri Ramakrishna gets the answer. [SPEAKER_00]: Master, he can free himself from attachment to lust and gold, if by the grace of God he cultivates the spirit of strong renunciation. [SPEAKER_00]: What is this strong renunciation?

37:57 [SPEAKER_00]: One who has only a mighty spirit of renunciation says, well, all will happen in the course of time. [SPEAKER_00]: Let me now simply repeat the name of God. [SPEAKER_00]: That's a lot of us, I think. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, this is a lot. [SPEAKER_00]: I have a lot going on in my life, a little bit of spirituality, a little bit of meditation, a little bit of an attending a couple of classes, listen to a few few talks, and maybe try a little.

38:19 [SPEAKER_00]: I downloaded a meditation app. [SPEAKER_00]: It's called waking up, Sam Harris. [SPEAKER_00]: So I had this discussion with Sam Harris scheduled for later this month. [SPEAKER_00]: I thought, let me just take a look at meditation app. [SPEAKER_00]: So I've downloaded a meditation app which I might use once in a while and take the name of God once in a while.

38:43 [SPEAKER_01]: Sri Ram Krishna says, no, no, no. [SPEAKER_00]: That's not enough. [SPEAKER_00]: That's not enough. [SPEAKER_00]: He says, a man possessed of strong spirit of enunciation feels restless for God as the mother feels for her own child. [SPEAKER_00]: A man of strong enunciation seeks nothing but God.

39:01 [SPEAKER_00]: He regards the world as a deep well and feels as if he were being drowned in it. [SPEAKER_00]: He's going to be drowned in it. [SPEAKER_00]: He wants to, there's people who want to draw him. [SPEAKER_00]: Not all relatives are like that. [SPEAKER_00]: You might have an uncle who's very spiritual and so but people who want to nowadays, they put you in their WhatsApp groups and you have all the worldly chatter from all corners of the world coming into your phone every day and day and night.

39:33 [SPEAKER_00]: As venomous snakes, he wants to fly away from them, and he does go away. [SPEAKER_00]: He never thinks, let me first make some arrangements for my family and then I shall think of God. [SPEAKER_00]: He is great in word resolution. [SPEAKER_01]: Yes. [SPEAKER_00]: I did not know this one of my friends a monk is told me this about Swami Bhutasya Nandiji.

39:57 [SPEAKER_00]: He is a president of our order, 12th president. [SPEAKER_00]: He is to tell it seems he is to tell monks, being a Hari, cultivate this attitude of being in a Hari, Hari means in spiritual life. [SPEAKER_00]: the useful days of our life are few, and which pass many of them in unknowing, you know, just being in the world, fine things are going on, good and bad, then we begin to know or become interesting spiritual life, but very soon, old age is upon us, inform it is upon us, and our capacities are strongly, as sharply reduced, so the useful days of our life are few, [SPEAKER_00]: Sri Rama Krishna and this story also I learned recently.

40:43 [SPEAKER_00]: He was always a man in a hurry. [SPEAKER_00]: There is a very interesting story of him, just a little anecdote of what he was like, getting in the horse carriage has come to take him to Calcutta to attend to go to some devotees house where he would talk about garden. [SPEAKER_00]: But the coachman is no way to be seen.

40:59 [SPEAKER_00]: So he's ready. [SPEAKER_00]: So Ram Krishna is ready. [SPEAKER_00]: He goes and sits in the hot source carriage and his young disciple Baburam who later became Swami Preman and there is also there. [SPEAKER_00]: Now Sri Ramakrishna is restless and he tells Baburam, can't you drive? [SPEAKER_00]: Now, that little thing shows the, that he was not ready to waste even a moment of his time.

41:22 [SPEAKER_00]: Not for making money, not for scientific research, but the pursuit of enlightenment, God realization. [SPEAKER_00]: At least a little bit of that urgency, we should have. [SPEAKER_00]: To be a little bit in the, in the, in the hurry. [SPEAKER_00]: And in the senior Swami gave this very beautiful poetic, [SPEAKER_00]: Similarly, this is a very good, this is the nearier, so this is very good for the nearier.

41:47 [SPEAKER_00]: He says, you know what an nearier is like. [SPEAKER_00]: You are sitting under a tree. [SPEAKER_00]: A tree with not with leaves, but 365 little songbirds. [SPEAKER_00]: And every day one of those birds flies down and it's before you and flaps its wings and things its song and dances and plays about, then as night falls it flies away, never to be seen again all your life.

42:10 [SPEAKER_00]: And this way one by one all of the birds, the fly past in our life, had this as a very beautiful, much more beautiful than, I don't know those of your red, Sylvia plus. [SPEAKER_00]: And if you read about the fig tree, she talks about, right? [SPEAKER_01]: You read about that? [SPEAKER_00]: Again, a tree, the tree is her life.

42:38 [SPEAKER_00]: And the figs are there in her life. [SPEAKER_00]: And as she says, I look upon them. [SPEAKER_00]: Here, I'm a great writer, greeting great renown. [SPEAKER_00]: There, I'm an explorer, intrepid explorer, travel across the world. [SPEAKER_00]: there I'm a contented mother and a wife with children and there, you know, so like this and she watches and she wants to know which I should be, what I should do, till she says the age and the shrink and the widder and drop at my feet one by one gone forever.

43:13 [SPEAKER_00]: She kills herself. [SPEAKER_00]: That's a more morbid way of looking at the tree of life. [SPEAKER_00]: But in both cases, there's one thing common, the time is passing. [SPEAKER_00]: Time is passing. [SPEAKER_00]: Be resolute. [SPEAKER_00]: The digital time that remains to us. [SPEAKER_00]: I will realize God in this very life.

43:34 [SPEAKER_00]: I will devote time to meditation. [SPEAKER_00]: I'll devote time to japa, devote time to worship, to doing karma yoga, worship, to serve, [SPEAKER_00]: and inquire into who am I, all these yogas, fill your days with these yogas, a certain sense of spiritual urgency. [SPEAKER_00]: See, contentment with the world, we always should be contented about in spiritual life, true, but contented where, contented with the world, with our life in the world.

44:05 [SPEAKER_00]: I have got enough, some good things have happened, some bad things have happened, that's fine. [SPEAKER_00]: It's one among billions of likes, no big deal. [SPEAKER_00]: The discontented when it comes to God realization, to spiritual life. [SPEAKER_00]: Often, our problem is just the opposite.

44:21 [SPEAKER_00]: We are discontented about things in the world. [SPEAKER_00]: If it were just so I understand what you're saying, Swami, but I would just arrange the world in this way, then I will do it. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no, never. [SPEAKER_00]: It's never going to happen, and we are content about spiritual life, where Sri Ram Krishna says that well, all will happen in the course of time.

44:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Let me now simply repeat the name of God. [SPEAKER_00]: Sri Ram Krishna will tell a story about resolution in spiritual life. [SPEAKER_00]: This is one thing I'm noted among the great Swami, the direct disciples of Sri Ram Krishna, and all the Swami is very great Swami. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, every simple practice all of them had, they finished what they started.

45:07 [SPEAKER_00]: It's something I admire, I don't have too much of it myself, but they all do. [SPEAKER_00]: I've seen a cross of it for the last, I've been seeing monks for 30 years now at close quarters, all the best ones, the one common quality was a determination, focus. [SPEAKER_00]: Take up something, finish it, not do anything else, and the mean time.

45:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes. [SPEAKER_01]: So, yes, everything, everything, everything says, these are, you know, we provide to a non-station, and to me, focus. [SPEAKER_01]: Above responsibility, it's a life. [SPEAKER_01]: So when we feel that we have to finish our responsibilities in life like or how do you make you the your duties in life and be there now?

46:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Neither seek nor avoid. [SPEAKER_00]: If you try to run away from life, the problem is, it cannot run away. [SPEAKER_00]: We have a chain of previous karma. [SPEAKER_00]: It'll come around, some in some form with the other. [SPEAKER_00]: I've seen monks running away from everything else, up in the Himalayas.

46:22 [SPEAKER_00]: You can get rid of all the venomous snakes, relatives. [SPEAKER_00]: You can get rid of your job. [SPEAKER_00]: You can get rid of... You can just stay there. [SPEAKER_00]: The little heart you can stay in. [SPEAKER_00]: There is food, now this food is not a problem. [SPEAKER_00]: If you have to be contented with simple fare, the ticker.

46:40 [SPEAKER_00]: No, I'm just joking. [SPEAKER_00]: Even food is dead. [SPEAKER_00]: Everything is provided for. [SPEAKER_00]: So you do. [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's a wonderful life. [SPEAKER_00]: No responsibilities. [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't want anything in the world. [SPEAKER_00]: So I'll just, you know, repeat the name of the Lord.

46:51 [SPEAKER_00]: I'll read my philosophy spiritual books, meditate as much as I can. [SPEAKER_00]: What a wonderful life. [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, no. [SPEAKER_00]: That same karma will follow you. [SPEAKER_00]: physical illness. [SPEAKER_00]: It'll come in the form of unbearable cold. [SPEAKER_00]: It'll come in the form of an annoying monk who lives in the next cave of the earth, annoying monk.

47:17 [SPEAKER_00]: What's an annoying monk? [SPEAKER_00]: A chatty monk? [SPEAKER_00]: So it's impossible to get rid of. [SPEAKER_00]: As long as you are taking care of things, moralist things are going on, good enough, minimize, give more and more time, minimize positions. [SPEAKER_00]: These are things where we can do actually, wherever we are, minimize and very good idea in New York with all the high rent and limited space, to minimize positions, minimize your obligations.

47:51 [SPEAKER_00]: minimize relationships and transactions. [SPEAKER_00]: That's what happens when you become a monk, all of these minimize so that you have your mental energy set free, time is also set free. [SPEAKER_00]: The little bit is there, that's not bad. [SPEAKER_00]: Little bit is good, it gives structure.

48:12 [SPEAKER_00]: Even when you go to an ashram, there'll be a structure, there'll be a routine, there'll be tasks given to us. [SPEAKER_00]: One monk I know, [SPEAKER_00]: He told me that as a young novice, when he joined our Ashram, there was many years of 50 years of course. [SPEAKER_00]: He complained to the senior monk in Beludmathe wrote, I am no time for spiritual practice, this Ashram, I am working 14 hours a day.

48:39 [SPEAKER_00]: And the monk wrote back to the whom he had complained to senior monk, wrote back to good. [SPEAKER_00]: I am happy to know that you are spending your time in the service of Sri Lama Krishna. [SPEAKER_00]: We, I remember, I had the same attitude. [SPEAKER_00]: All of us, I think, the new monks, we go through that same attitude.

48:57 [SPEAKER_00]: They have somehow an assumption that, yeah, yeah, I know spiritual life is a long haul. [SPEAKER_00]: It'll be for all your life and you have to persist in it. [SPEAKER_00]: But some there is an assumption that not me though. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to become enlightened in a matter of years, if not once.

49:14 [SPEAKER_00]: And we learn the hard way that it's not so fast. [SPEAKER_00]: So it's good to be engaged in something, a job, some family obligations. [SPEAKER_00]: But the question is, how do you develop a two-to-two-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three-to-three- [SPEAKER_00]: and the Lord is present in all of them, it's not that the Lord is here and that's why worldly responsibility.

49:51 [SPEAKER_00]: The Lord is there too. [SPEAKER_00]: And that is spiritual practice too. [SPEAKER_00]: Otherwise, if you separate them sharply, then what happens is worldly life becomes devoid of spirituality, of inspiration, it becomes sort of meaningless, a drudgery. [SPEAKER_00]: Why am I doing this?

50:08 [SPEAKER_00]: You always feel that way. [SPEAKER_00]: I spiritual life is crushed because most of our time and energy is taken up by our [SPEAKER_00]: So you don't make that distribution. [SPEAKER_00]: Make it, body life also is spiritual practice. [SPEAKER_00]: You're cooking, you're serving, you're working in the office, all of it also spiritual practice.

50:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Easier said than done. [SPEAKER_00]: Shanti, Shanti, Shanti, Hari, Hyom, Thatsat, Sri Ramakrishna, Rupa Anamastu, I pray to Thakulma and Swamiji at the beginning of this year to bless us with devotion and knowledge and give us that inspiration that [SPEAKER_00]: You know, at least I don't know if we really want God, but as one person told me that's very beautifully, this much is true of all of us.

51:07 [SPEAKER_00]: We really all of us. [SPEAKER_00]: We really want to want God. [SPEAKER_00]: That's good enough for God. [SPEAKER_00]: Make it so that we will really love God.